Wearable tech is a multi-billion dollar industry that is making gadgets like smartwatches to enable people to smartly track their health.
Many premium wearable tech products claim that they are capable of tracking accurate body temperature, heart rate, sleep patterns, menstrual cycle, and exercise routine. Even the UK Heath Secretary, Wes Streeting, proposed to give away wearables to millions of NHS patients in England so that they can monitor different symptoms, including reactions to cancer treatments, from home, reported BBC.
A large number of the population are wearing these smartwatches and rings to monitor their health, and a number of doctors believe that it enables them to “assess overall health more precisely.” A number of doctors, including some tech experts, have shown their concerns over the health data captured by wearables.
Dr. Yang Wei, associate professor in wearable technologies at Nottingham Trent University, while talking about the smart ring, highlighted, “The gold standard to measure the heart rate is from the wrist or direct from the heart,” adding that when someone measures it from a finger, they are basically sacrificing the accuracy.
Moreover, Dr. Helen Salisbury, a GP practicing in Oxford, noticed that many patients now, it happens more often that patients come and show off their fitness trackers, which is making her concerned.
She said, “I think for the number of times when it’s useful, there are probably more times that it’s not terribly useful, and I worry that we are building a society of hypochondria and over-monitoring of our bodies.”
“I’m concerned that we will be encouraging people to monitor everything all the time, and see their doctor every time the machine thinks they’re ill, rather than when they think they’re ill,” she further added.
Meanwhile, doctors also agree to the fact that these wearables have encouraged a number of good habits among people, including walking more, avoiding alcohol, maintaining a healthy weight, and better sleep, but all they suggest to people is to maintain balance.
